The National Basketball Association (NBA) is opening a glitzy "lifestyle destination'' complex with an official basketball court, a hoop-themed restaurant and a children's zone.

You can train like Kobe Bryant, or even a Laker girl, at a state-of-the-art fitness center.

Perhaps you could spend the day at an interactive carnival, either shooting jump shots against a virtual LeBron James or participate in a two-on-two competition with friends or fellow visitors.

The NBA experience in the $1.5 billion, 2,300-acre sports and entertainment superstructure is not in Beverly Hills or the shadow of Madison Square Garden in Manhattan.

It is on the outskirts of Beijing.

"China is our number one market outside of the United States," Heidi Ueberroth, president of NBA International, told Reuters,"The growth has been very significant and very much on track, and we are very much still just scratching the surface.''

Many people in the United States believe basketball entered China's public consciousness when Yao Ming joined the NBA. Though he had a enormous impact, the game had a huge following well before the 7-foot-6 (2.29-meter) center became a member of the Houston Rockets in 2002.

The Miami Heat and Los Angeles Clippers played two pre-season games in China in 2012 and the knowledge of NBA history by the fans stunned league officials.

"Bill Russell came to our pre-season games in October,'' NBA China CEO David Shoemaker said in an interview, "And in both Beijing and Shanghai ... we're talking about a young generation of fans here ... we introduced Bill Russell to them without any real description of what he did.

Although Rockets guard Jeremy Lin, a Harvard-educated Chinese-American, currently carries the Sino banner in the NBA, 300 million play the game in the basketball-mad nation.

Commissioner David Stern said the NBA water-cooler talk in China is similar to anyplace in America.

'The discussions are all the same - about last night's games, about possible trades, about the [salary] cap, about revenue sharing," he said. ''It's really quite extraordinary."

Training center

The league has capitalized on its popularity by establishing the Chinese Basketball Association Dongguan Basketball School and NBA Training Center for potential pros.

"We have recruited elite juniors age 12 to 17 and they train in an NBA facility to become top-level basketball players," said Shoemaker. ''It's a collaboration with the CBA. We use our most modern techniques from a coaching level, from a nutrition level and from a physical training level.

"It's one of many ways we can partner with the local federation on the ground in China to further generate the next generation of basketball there.''

Yao was the catalyst for the NBA's soaring popularity in China but the now-retired eight-time All-Star plays down his influence in the game's popularity.

"Basketball had a big influence in China, even before the NBA got there,'' Yao, who retired from the NBA's Rockets in 2011 because of a foot injury, told Reuters."There was a foundation.

''Fans in China knew the stars of the league long before I played," he said. "And you know, I wasn't the first Chinese player in the NBA. I was the third."

New arenas

The league is helping to develop the fourth cutting-edge NBA-style arena in China, in Xiamen, on the southeast coast.

Sina, the online media company, streams one live game per day and the average number of viewers during the first six weeks of the current season were 1.16 million, up 172 percent from the same period in the 2010-11 season.

''We are growing very fast internationally," said Ueberroth, noting that last week's All-Star game was televised in 215 countries in 47 different languages. ''It's a big priority in our business. It's very profitable, particularly in a place like China. We've got over 20 marketing partners there. The official beer of the NBA, official soft drink of the NBA and yes, even the official milk."

Ueberroth hopes to bring the NBA's blueprint for success to other countries like India, Brazil and the Philippines. Africa, she said, is fertile ground.

But the still burgeoning success of the league in China may be hard to duplicate. NBA apparel and footwear is sold in more than 2,200 Adidas stores in the country of at least 1.3 billion people.

"Our fans base there is so knowledgeable and it just impresses every person that's part of the NBA family that goes over,'' Ueberroth said. "It's the history of basketball in China. It was brought by missionaries in the late 1800s, it's been part of the fabric and played throughout China. China had a team in the 1936 Olympics.

Manned deep space missions are still a long way off, but space agencies are already testing procedures, equipment and human stamina for operations in extreme environment conditions. Small groups of astronauts take turns in spending days in an underwater lab, off Florida’s southern coast, simulating future missions to some remote world. VOA’s George Putic reports.

Video

Manned deep space missions are still a long way off, but space agencies are already testing procedures, equipment and human stamina for operations in extreme environment conditions. Small groups of astronauts take turns in spending days in an underwater lab, off Florida’s southern coast, simulating future missions to some remote world. VOA’s George Putic reports.

Video

Fifty years ago, lawmakers approved, and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The measure outlawed racial discrimination in voting, giving millions of blacks in many parts of the southern United States federal enforcement of the right to vote. Correspondent Chris Simkins introduces us to some civil rights leaders who were on the front lines in the struggle for voting rights.

Video

Billions of dollars of so-called ‘dirty money’ from the proceeds of crime - especially from Russia - are being laundered through the London property market, according to anti-corruption activists. As Henry Ridgwell reports from the British capital, the government has pledged to crack down on the practice.

Video

Ottawa, Illinois, is the hometown of W.D. Boyce, who founded the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. In Ottawa, where Scouting remains an important part of the legacy of the community, the end of the organization's ban on openly gay adult leaders was seen as inevitable. VOA's Kane Farabaugh reports.

Video

Artificial limbs, including the most complex of them – the human hand – are getting more life-like and useful due to constant advances in tiny hydraulic, pneumatic and electric motors called actuators. But now, as VOA’s George Putic reports, scientists in Germany say the future of the prosthetic hand may lie not in motors but in wires that can ‘remember’ their shape.

Video

A British pro-democracy group has accused Russia of abusing the global law enforcement agency Interpol by requesting the arrest and extradition of political opponents. A new report by the group notes such requests can mean the accused are unable to travel and are often unable to open bank accounts. VOA's Henry Ridgwell reports.

Video

Talks on a major new trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim nations are said to be nearing completion in Hawaii. Some trade experts say the "positive atmosphere" at the discussions could mean a deal is within reach, but there is still hard bargaining to be done over many issues and products, including U.S. drugs and Japanese rice. VOA's Jim Randle reports.

Video

Earth is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction. The last such event was caused by an asteroid 66 million years ago. It killed off the dinosaurs and practically everything else. So scientists are in a race against time to classify the estimated 11 million species alive today. So far only 2 million are described by science, and researchers are worried many will disappear before they even have a name. VOA’s Rosanne Skirble reports.

Video

Scientists have long been trying to develop an effective protection and cure for malaria - one of the deadliest diseases that affects people in tropical areas, especially children. As the World Health Organization announces plans to begin clinical trials of a promising new vaccine, scientists in South Africa report that they too are at an important threshold. George Putic reports, they are testing a compound that could be a single-dose cure for malaria.

Video

The latest issue of 'New York' magazine features 35 women who say they were drugged and raped by film and television celebrity Bill Cosby. The women are aged from 44 to 80 and come from different walks of life and races. The magazine interviewed each of them separately, but Zlatica Hoke reports their stories are similar.

Video

The United States is promising not to give up its fight against what Secretary of State John Kerry calls the “scourge” of modern slavery. Officials released the country’s annual human trafficking report Monday – a report that’s being met with some criticism. VOA’s National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin has more from the State Department.

Video

Abandoned more than 50 years ago, the underground streetcar station in Washington D.C.’s historic DuPont Circle district is about to be reborn. The plan calls for turning the spacious underground platforms - once meant to be a transportation hub, - into a unique space for art exhibitions, presentations, concerts and even a film set. Roman Mamonov has more from beneath the streets of the U.S. capital. Joy Wagner narrates his report.

Video

Greece has replaced Italy as the main gateway for migrants into Europe, with more than 100,000 arrivals in the first six months of 2015. Many want to move further into Europe and escape Greece’s economic crisis, but they face widespread dangers on the journey overland through the Balkans. VOA's Henry Ridgwell reports.

Video

After the closure of a major rubbish dump a week ago, the streets of Beirut are filling up with trash. Having failed to draw up a plan B, politicians are struggling to deal with the problem. John Owens has more for VOA from Beirut.

Video

A U.N. climate conference in December aims to produce an ambitious agreement to fight heat-trapping greenhouse gases. But many local governments are not waiting, and have drafted their own climate action plans. That’s the case with Paris — which is getting special attention, since it’s hosting the climate summit. Lisa Bryant takes a look for VOA at the transformation of the French capital into an eco-city.